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excavation site for the Pennsylvania-Yale expedition. I joined it for two seasons (1967, 1968). In 1970, at the time
when, because of continuing hostilities with Israel, all foreign missions in outlying places were closed, David
moved the expediton to Malkata, Amenhotep III’s palace city at western Thebes. I carried out the initial survey of
the site and then directed a major season of excavation in 1973.
By that time I had become deeply interested in the nature of ancient Egyptian urbanism and the way of life it
supported. I carried out surveys of the remains of a number of ancient towns (Kom Ombo, Edfu, Abydos and
Memphis), gathering evidence to support the idea that most ancient Egyptians had lived in a fairly close network
of towns which were often far more modest in size and building style than seemed generally appreciated.
Why Amarna? And how was the Amarna Project born?
I had been asked to contribute a paper to a research seminar on settlement patterns and urbanisation to be held
during December 1970 at the Institute of Archaeology of London University. The seminar resulted in a thick book,
Man, Settlement and Urbanism, edited by Peter J. Ucko, Ruth Tringham and G.W. Dimbleby (London, Duckworth
1972). In writing my contribution, ‘Temple and town in ancient Egypt’, I found myself for the first time trying to
put into a better order my thoughts on the essential nature of Egyptian society, and how archaeology might be
better employed to take the subject further. It led me to realise that the best place to pursue that agenda was
Amarna. That paper laid out a programme of work that I have pursued ever since. As it relates to Amarna, along
with many co-workers I can see that much detail has been added, and good ideas pursued. But the main goal,
which was to quantify the evidence better (the 1960s and 1970s were a time of much optimism in archaeology
over the prospects of more precise modelling and understanding of societies) and so to rely less upon intuitive
generalisation, has remained elusive.
I approached the Egypt Exploration Society to ask if they would support a survey of Amarna, to establish better
what had been done and what remained to be done. They agreed. After two periods of surveying (1977 and
1978) they agreed to support excavation, which was at first at the Workmen’s Village. They contined this support
until 2006, when a change in UK-government funding priorities led to the withdrawal of the main grant upon
which the EES depended for its fieldwork. In order to keep the expedition going, with the help of friends I set up
View southwards across the Amarna plain. In the near distance is the North City, an area of houses beside a double wall with gateway which protected the North Riverside
Palace (now lost beneath the fields). The ruined house in the middle of the picture was built by the Egypt Exploration Society and used in the 1920s and 1930s.